Will deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon shatter US-Iran ceasefire? – The Latest

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0:10They committed one of the largest mass killings in the last four decades in Lebanon in just under 10 minutes. It's sort of hard to imagine that the people in the negotiating room didn't realize that Lebanon could be the stumbling block that breaks the ceasefire. because Iran was very clear, Pakistan was very clear that Lebanon should be included. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise. It seems like Israel is determined to make sure that whatever ceasefire happens, it doesn't happen in Lebanon.

0:45It wants this war to keep going. Israel bombards Lebanon with a massive wave of airstrikes, including in Beirut, which Iran now says is a blatant violation of the ceasefire. So is the agreement already collapsing? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Well, I'm joined by Will Christou, a Guardian reporter based in Beirut. Will, thanks so much for dialing in. You're in East Beirut at the moment, right, after sort of extraordinary 24 hours of Israeli strikes and violence, including in Beirut where you are. I mean, 100 bombs in 10 minutes, hospitals reported to be in a very overwhelmed and dire condition and hundreds killed.

1:32Just tell me what it's like, where you are and what the last 24 hours have been like. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Lucy. The last 24 hours have been very heavy. You know, immediately we heard a series of explosions that were louder than the things we're used to yesterday around 2 p.m. And then pictures started to come in of buildings that were collapsed, plumes of smoke all over the city. And you just started hearing ambulances. I lived next to a hospital, so I heard the ambulances nonstop. And immediately the health ministry asked people to clear the road so ambulances could get to the strike sites.

2:08And I went down to one of the strike sites in central Beirut. Lebanon has been at war for about a month. But there's always sort of this idea that there are safe areas. The war is over there, we're over here, depending on where you live. But yesterday that sort of shattered those conceptions because the strikes were everywhere all at once. And Israel was bragging about the operational logistics of what they did. They put out a statement saying they hit over 100 targets in just 10 minutes. The other side of that here in Lebanon meant that they committed one of the largest mass killings in the last four decades in Lebanon in just under 10 minutes.

2:46And the results were horrible. Yeah, a tragedy. And Israel's justification was that this was targeted strikes for Hezbollah. But the fact that these strikes involved so many civilian casualties is just devastating. What's the feeling in Beirut now and across the country? Because there must be, as we touched on on the show yesterday, huge confusion about people's safety, whether they can return home, what they should do. There were no evacuation orders issued yesterday, right, which is why the strikes felt so shocking and devastating. Yeah, I think, you know, everyone's in mourning. Today has been declared a national day of mourning in Lebanon, and people are just sort of taking stock of what happened.

3:31People are still being pulled out of the rubble. The death toll we have, about 254 people is initial. They're still finding people, oftentimes not intact. So I think people are sort of reeling. and everyone knows someone who was affected, you know, a good friend of mine, her entire building was destroyed. Her mom was in the building five minutes before. You know, you can imagine what sort of feeling that puts in you. And then I was talking to doctors, you know, one of the doctors I spoke to was Dr. Ghassan Abusitte, who was present in Gaza during the war. And he said what he saw yesterday was similar to what he saw in Gaza.

4:04Children coming in without their parents, their parents, some of them dead, elderly patients, mass amputations. It's really, it's a grim scene. It's just unbelievably grim that there's been this level of civilian death. I mean, yesterday, we were talking about this fragile ceasefire that just, I mean, it seems like there's no ceasefire at all today. But at the time that this was all agreed, Pakistan had said that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire agreement. Trump is now saying, to quote him, it's a separate skirmish. But Iran is saying they will not proceed with the ceasefire unless Lebanon is included.

4:44So it just feels like the whole thing is in total jeopardy. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's sort of hard to imagine that the people in the negotiating room didn't realise that Lebanon could be the stumbling block that breaks the ceasefire. Because Iran was very clear, Pakistan was very clear that Lebanon should be included. But at the same time, Israel and the US said there's a misunderstanding. But there's certainly no ceasefire in Lebanon. They're still bombing today. Yesterday was the deadliest day of the conflict in decades. And so people here are wondering what's happening. People are sending back and forth statements from Trump, who as always is contradicting himself.

5:23So it's a little bit like reading the tea leaves. And in terms of what Israel's intentions are, I mean, obviously weakening and wiping out Hezbollah has long been an aim of the Netanyahu government. Back in 2006, intensive war, but that really focused on the South, didn't it? Do you think that the aims of the Israeli government have changed or that they are acting perhaps with greater ambition? So Israel also has been a bit contradictory in its statements in terms of its war aims. What it said at first is that it wanted to disarm Hezbollah. In the last week, it said that might not be possible just through an invasion ground campaign.

6:03What we know is that they said that occupy the southern part of the country up until the Latani River, and that they'll continue their strikes until, I don't know, they see fit, their war aims are achieved. I mean, there was talk at that time of a security zone, which is exactly the language we hear about Gaza, right? Yeah, I mean, that in effect is an occupation of the south. And now in Lebanon, we have 1.2 million people who have been displaced, hundreds of thousands of those people have been displaced from the south of Lebanon. If Israel does go through that occupation, where do those people go?

6:39And an unfortunate side effect of these strikes, which are hitting non-Hezbollah-affiliated areas, many of them which are housing displaced people, is that people are increasingly nervous about the presence of displaced people. Many people, there is solidarity, that's not the case for everyone, but there are groups in Lebanon who are reluctant to take in displaced people. And so, you know, what's going to happen to these 1.2 million people? And all this ahead of these talks that are supposed to happen in Islamabad, led by Pakistan, about this so-called ceasefire. Given the escalation that we're seeing, given the clear difference in the position of the US and Israel versus that of other invested parties in this, Iran being one of them, but also there's been really strong criticism of Israel's actions from European governments, the UK, France in particular today.

7:33I mean, do you think that there's a chance the ceasefire can be pushed through or do you think we just risk going back into a re-escalation? I think it really depends on Iran. If Iran really sticks to its guns and says that, you know, it will not proceed with the ceasefire without Lebanon, then maybe Trump will blink, you know, Maybe if they don't open the Strait of Hormuz and oil doesn't start flowing again, maybe he'll capitulate. But until now, it seems like Israel is determined to make sure that whatever ceasefire happens, it doesn't happen in Lebanon. It wants this war to keep going. And yesterday's actions, this Putz Creek, we saw the mass civilian casualties.

8:14It's something that definitely could disrupt the ceasefire. and to many people in Lebanon, it seems designed to create chaos in the ceasefire process. And just lastly, Will, you said that Lebanon has been in a war situation for a month now. Much of this, of course, about weakening Hezbollah. But what sort of a state are Hezbollah in? There was a very senior official that has been killed in the last 24 hours, right? But much like in Gaza, if the Israeli intention is to wipe out Hamas, to wipe out Hezbollah, that has proved time and time again to be unsuccessful. Yeah, I think you said it best yourself.

8:52People talk about how we're seeing the Gaza playbook in Lebanon, attacking civilian infrastructure, hitting medics, mass displacement, these sorts of things. And yesterday was another example of that. Conducting strikes in highly, in residential areas, densely populated areas with seemingly little regard to civilian life. But what we saw in Gaza, like you said, is that even though they fought a war there for two and a half years, and even though there's an incredibly high civilian death toll and they've raised the place to the ground, Hamas has not been disarmed. So trying to repeat that, you know, that doctrine, that experiment in Lebanon, a country that's many times the size of the Gaza Strip, with a group that's more powerful and more well entrenched like Hezbollah, you know, I don't see how it ends any better than it did in Gaza.

9:35And who is, of course, an Iranian proxy who has been weakened but emboldened by by this month and a bit long war. Will, thank you so much for your time and stay safe in Beirut. Thank you. My huge thanks again to Will Christou, a Guardian reporter based in Beirut. Do keep up with his brilliant reporting over at theguardian.com. He's also been filming from Beirut for us, which you can find on Guardian social media platforms. That's it for today. Thanks for listening to this episode of the latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back with you as usual tomorrow morning The latest will be back tomorrow night And in the meantime I'd highly recommend today's episode of Science Weekly which is all about what we've learnt from the Artemis II moon mission as the crew make their way back home It's fascinating This episode was presented by me, Lucy Half It was produced by Bryony Moore The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin The lead producer was Zoe Hitch

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